


Requiem

by becauseitwasreal



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Judaism, M/M, Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Discrimination, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Roman Catholicism, This will contain:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 11:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11126106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becauseitwasreal/pseuds/becauseitwasreal
Summary: His mother had berated him many times before for not learning the prayers properly, but she didn’t understand how hard it was. The words felt wrong in his mouth. How could he pray when he didn't know what the prayers meant?Or: 5 times Armando Salazar didn't pray + 1 time he did.





	Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing, except for the storyline and any original characters. I try to be as historically accurate as possible, but I'm not an expert (:

“Requiem aeternam dona ei.”

Armando didn’t understand the words his grandmother was saying. Her hands were pressed firmly together, and he found himself mimicking her, testing the feeling of his rough fingertips against each other, the palms of his hands not touching. He thought that perhaps his grandmother was crying, but he couldn’t tell. She was bent forwards, the large black cape covering her eyes from his curious stares.  

She was not the only one in the only church of Peñiscola who was whispering the revered words. Throwing a quick glance over his shoulder, Armando couldn’t even see the entrance of the church because of all the people who were standing up from their chairs, huddled over in exactly the same manner as his grandmother. He wasn’t surprised that so many people turned up. His father had always said that his grandfather was an important man, and that he was the kind of man Armando should be when he had grown up. He was surprised about the large capacity of the church. He hadn’t thought that all the people who turned up in front of the large doors – he’s seen then all, from the small window of the attached rooms where the body had been before the service – could possibly fit into the Santa Maria, especially since the building was far from finished. He hadn’t expected it to be this big on the inside. The only time he’d seen it was when he was only five, when he went there with his grandmother, who knew the men who were constructing it. Or their wives, more likely. Back then, he hadn’t known the purpose of the visit. He knew a little better now. Armando’s mother always said that she hoped that he would one day help finish it, but he suspected that that was just because she didn’t want him to go to sea, like his father and his father’s father.

He knew how his grandfather had died. He wasn’t stupid, even if he was still young – a boy, according to his father. It had been pirates who took his grandfather’s life. Armando’s father had been the one to return the body – or what was left of it. The Spanish navy wasn’t popular among criminals, his father had said. The pirates wanted to eradicate their entire fleet, undermine their government. But the Spanish wouldn’t back down. They would fight until the last pirate ship had been sunken into the bottomless ocean. Armando didn’t think that pirates liked any kind of navy, regardless of where they came from, but he didn’t tell his father that. He knew his _mamá_ was afraid for her husband now, and afraid for her son. But she didn’t understand the way in which the sea called to him, as eager to claim him for herself as she had been when his father was a boy. His father had always told him stories, stories of his first day aboard a navy ship, together with his own father. Stories of the first time he had encountered a pirate. Stories of the day he signed himself up for the navy, and of how proud his father had been – how proud he expected to be of his own son. Sometimes his father even allowed him on board of his _El Orgullo de Theresia_. Armando had loved it, just like his father did. He would untie his hair and let it be caressed by the winds that blew from the Mediterranean – to his mother’s chagrin, as she was the one who had to brush the knots out of it in the evening. Armando’s father would stand beside him, keeping an eye on his crew and on the untouchable horizon that lay in front of them. His mother had joked that _Capitán_ Salazar loved that ship more than he loved her, and Armando suspected that there was more truth in that than she expected. His father kept his ship in a perfect condition, and taught him all the particulars – he knew where each sail came from, what type of wood the deck was made from and who had spilled a drop of blue paint on the fore mast years before Armando was even born.

A hand was laid on his shoulder. He looked up to his right to see his father closing his eyes, and took the hint to do the same.

“Domine et lux perpetua luceat ei.”

His father’s voice was clear, and Armando wished now that he could speak the words with him. His mother had berated him many times before for not learning the prayers properly, but she didn’t understand how hard it was. The words felt wrong in his mouth, and the man who was supposed to be teaching him couldn’t explain them to him either. He had asked, but _profesor_ Sánchez had merely told him that the prayers were supposed to be said like he had written them down. How could he pray something when he didn’t know what it meant? It was only today that he realised why the profesor had tried to teach him the words of the prayer. He felt oddly left out with his lips pressed together, and he started to move them up and down, mumbling nonsense sounds, so that if anyone still had their eyes open they’d think that he was praying with them. His father’s hand remained on his shoulder.

_“He’s only a boy, Sofía. He doesn’t understand the Latin and it’s not as if Sánchez can explain it to him. This is the Port of Peñiscola, not Santiago de Compostela. There’s no one here to teach Armando, and he’d be better off learning from Goméz.”_

_“Our boy is not going to sea. If he can learn all the naval terms you keep cluttering his head with, he can learn how to pray properly.”_

_Amaranto Salazar shook his head, hiding a smile from his wife as he saw his eleven-year-old hiding behind the curtain that hung in the doorway. “He takes after his father. You should know that by now.”_

_“I know,” was the cold reply. “And sometimes I wish he didn’t.”_

Armando opened his eyes at the sound of a muffled cry. He immediately looked to his left, where he expected to see his grandmother losing her composure. But his grandmother’s veil still covered her face, and she was bowed as before. Another sniff. A squeeze of a strong hand, a warm gesture. His father was crying, and the comforting weight on Armando’s shoulder became a burden.

“Requiescat in pace. Amen.”

“Amen,” his grandmother repeated.

“Amen,” his mother repeated.

“Amen,” his father repeated.

Armando didn’t understand what the word meant.


End file.
